Author: whatcathyreadnext

Blog Tour: The Winner by Erin Bomboy

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The Winner by Erin Bomboy

As a fan of Strictly Come Dancing, I’m thrilled to host today’s stop on the blog tour for The Winner: A Ballroom Dance Novel by Erin Bomboy. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like behind the scenes of competitive ballroom dancing, then this is the book for you!

WinIf you’re based in the United States, I can give you the chance to dance away with your own copy of The Winner. Just tap on the link below to enter the giveaway. The giveaway closes on 6th October.

https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/defcd44e303/

The Winner by Erin BomboyAbout the Book

The most prestigious ballroom dance competition in the United States. Two dancers need to win. Only one can.

Nina Fortunova wasn’t supposed to end up almost thirty, divorced, with her dreams of winning shattered. When she teams up with Jorge Gonzalez, a Latin dancer, to reinvent the flashy Smooth style, Nina must decide how far she will go to win – even if it means losing Jorge. Carly Martindale is doing everything she’s been taught not to do – placing her happiness first by dancing with Trey Devereux, the former three-time champion who’s returned to competition for mysterious reasons. How far will Carly sacrifice herself, so Trey and she can win? Co-workers, then friends, and now arch competitors, Nina and Carly face off to determine who will be the winner.

Format: ebook (328 pp.), Paperback (353 pp.)      Publisher: Curtain Call Press
Published: 20th Dec 2016                                           Genre: Fiction

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find The Winner on Goodreads

My Review

I’m a huge fan of Strictly Come Dancing (the format known as Dancing With The Stars in the US) but watching it on TV gives you little indication of the real life drama, the graft, and the travelling that is integral to the competitive ballroom dancing circuit. The Winner lifts the lid on this and gives you privileged access to the lives of the dancers, and to what goes on before and during competitions.  As well as being a fascinating story about ballroom dancing, The Winner is also a terrifically engaging story about two really interesting female characters.

Nina is disappointed in love, thwarted in her dance ambitions, starting to feel the physical effects of her dancing career but conscious of all her mother has sacrificed to enable her to chase her dream of winning. Carly is a perfectionist, seeking escape from a home dominated by the needs of her brother who is low-level autistic, all the time battling her guilt at pursuing her dream when she is needed at home. Nina and Carly, may be at different points in their careers but they are equally in love with dancing – and equally determined to win the top prize in ballroom dancing.

Then there are the men: Jorge – driven, passionate but too finding his body starting to let him down; Trey – handsome, enigmatic, self-contained, guarded, on the comeback trail for reasons of his own.

The author does a great job of conveying the fierce competition, the hard work and the economic realities of competitive ballroom dancing. It’s an environment where winning can bring great financial rewards and an illustrious career in coaching or judging but losing brings nothing.

‘Competition was what was happening right now, right here. It was Darwinian, survival of the fittest, the fleetest, the fastest thinker.’

I really admired how the author managed to communicate the intricacies of dancing and those small elements of technique that separate the good from the great. What comes across is her admiration for the craft of dancing when done really well – the musicality, timing, connection between the couples and the artistry displayed in the various dances.

‘I spotted the winners in the first round…Their technique was strong, but that wasn’t enough to win. This couple had brilliant musicality…This couple toyed with the music, two frisky mice that teased the old tomcat. Holding here, hastening there, they arrived everywhere almost, but not quite, late. They used their bodies the way award-winning actors use speech – meaning forged through pacing.’

I really enjoyed The Winner although, for me, the ending slightly let it down because it covered a period of years in a few chapters and I missed the intensity of earlier in the book. I felt happy for how things turned out for Nina but less so for Carly, although this just proves how much the author managed to engage me in their stories!

I received a review copy courtesy of the author and iRead Book Tours in return for an honest and unbiased review.

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In three words: Compelling, realistic, dramatic

Erin Bomboy Head ShotAbout the Author

A native of Richmond, Virginia, Erin Bomboy trained as a classical ballet dancer before spending a decade as a professional competitive ballroom dancer. She holds an MFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter where she works as a writer, editor, and teacher in the dance field. In her free time, Erin enjoys bacon, books, cats, and wine.

She is the author of The Piece: A Contemporary Ballet Novel and The Winner: A Ballroom Dance Novel. Her next novel, tentatively titled The Pas de Deux: A Classical Ballet Novel, will explore the relationship between a ballerina at the end of her career and the much-younger dancer with whom she falls in love. Taking the shape of a traditional pas de deux, it will premiere in 2018.

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Book Review: Take Courage by Samantha Ellis

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TakeCourageAbout the Book

Anne Brontë is the forgotten Brontë sister, overshadowed by her older siblings – virtuous, successful Charlotte, free-spirited Emily and dissolute Branwell. Tragic, virginal, sweet, stoic, selfless Anne. The less talented Brontë, the other Brontë. Or that’s what Samantha Ellis, a life-long Emily and Wuthering Heights devotee, had always thought. Until, that is, she started questioning that devotion and, in looking more closely at Emily and Charlotte, found herself confronted by Anne instead. Take Courage is Samantha’s personal, poignant and surprising journey into the life and work of a woman sidelined by history. A brave, strongly feminist writer well ahead of her time – and her more celebrated siblings – and who has much to teach us today about how to find our way in the world.

Format: Hardback Publisher: Chatto & Windus Pages: 344
Publication: 12th Jan 2017 Genre: Biography

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Book Depository
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life on Goodreads

My Review

I have my husband to thank for this absolutely fascinating book which was a very well-chosen birthday present. (Like all prolific readers, I am notoriously difficult to buy books for.) Unfortunately, it’s taken me quite a while to get around to reading it but I’m very glad I now have.

Anne’s last letter is the impetus for Samantha Ellis’s exploration of the life of Anne Brontë because it suggests a woman very different in character from the established portrayal. As her research progresses, Anne’s life and undervalued status seems to have a very personal resonance for the author. She sets out to prove Anne should not have been overlooked as a writer or in favour of her more famous siblings and that she has been mischaracterised. Samantha Ellis becomes Anne’s champion, determined to bring her out of the shadows and her position as the literary equivalent of ‘the third Beatle’.

The author examines Anne’s life through the prism of the people – principally the women – around her, and the heroines of her books, Agnes Gray and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.   In some cases, this involves a fair amount of speculation. For instance, Anne never knew Maria, her mother, because she died when Anne was only twenty months old. However, the author sees similarities in their appearance, piety and argues that Maria’s fledgling literary ambitions may have influenced her daughter. Similarly, there is very little known about Tabby, the Brontë’s cook and housekeeper, but the author surmises that it was Tabby who introduced Anne to the moors and inspired her love of nature.

There is more material to work with when it comes to Anne’s relationship with her sisters, Emily and Charlotte. Emily and Anne’s relationship was based on their shared literary endeavours, working together on creating the imaginary world of Gondal. Anne’s relationship with Charlotte comes across as altogether more complex and in fact Charlotte’s behaviour to her sister does not come out particularly well when placed under the spotlight. Anne’s public legacy was largely shaped by Charlotte who had control of Anne’s unpublished poems and published work. The author sees Charlotte as ‘more than anyone, responsible for Anne being seen as ‘the other Brontë’.

Sections of the book I particularly enjoyed were the author’s close readings of Anne’s two novels, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Although it’s not always reliable to read the author through the character, Ellis makes some persuasive arguments. She also argues that Anne’s novels ‘fiercely’ rewrite Charlotte’s in terms of the realism of her heroines.  The author contends that Agnes Grey is a much more accurate portrait of life as a governess than Jane Eyre, and that Anne’s flawed heroes are more true to life than the Byronic figures – think Rochester and Heathcliff – imagined by her sisters.

The other standout section of the book is its closing chapter in which the author recounts very movingly the circumstances of Anne’s final days and death. What a potential literary powerhouse the world was robbed of by Anne’s early death. It’s interesting to ponder whether, had she lived longer, she might have been the Brontë sister everyone remembers and not her older sisters.

Samantha Ellis admits the documentary evidence that remains about Anne’s life is slight and although the arguments she advances are reasonable it’s fair to say they are based on a lot of supposition. The book is littered with ‘might’, ‘maybe’ and ‘perhaps’.  I’m in no position to judge the scholarly worth of this book (nor do I want to) but I found it utterly absorbing and it has made me determined to reread Anne’s novels (in editions that are not ‘hatchet jobs’).

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In three words: Absorbing, personal, moving

Try something similar…Catherine Dickens: Outside the Magic Circle by Heera Datta (click here to read my review)

SamanthaEllisAbout the Author

Samantha Ellis is a playwright and journalist. Her first book How To Be A Heroine was published in 2014. Her plays include Cling to Me Like Ivy, Operation Magic Carpet and How to Date a Feminist. She has written for the Guardian, Observer, TLS, Spectator, Literary Review, the Pool, Exeunt and more. She lives in London.

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